


A Clever Companion

by SeaPlume



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe, BBC, Chaptered, Crossover, Gen, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-22
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-12-22 03:31:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/908387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeaPlume/pseuds/SeaPlume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After four years living in 21st-century London, the world's first consulting detective finally tracks down the strange man in the blue box who brought him there.</p>
<p>EDIT: This fic is on an indefinite hiatus and may not be finished. If you've been following it and really want to read more, please let me know. Sorry it's taken me so long to update!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Doctor pushed his way through the milling crowds in Central London. He never should have come here. That note had to be delivered, but now he had places to go, things to do, galaxies to explore and—  
  
"John!"   
  
Not him. They were talking to someone else, had to be. There were plenty of men named "John" in London.  
  
"John!" the muffled cry came again. Definitely him. The Doctor sighed. He wondered briefly if he should find another alias. After all, he had been going by 'John Smith' since even before Jamie suggested it—and that had been hundreds of years ago (just how many, the Doctor wasn't sure). If he could just make it one more block, the TARDIS was right around the corner, and—  
  
"John Watson!"  
  
The Doctor froze. In all his years, he had always gone by 'Smith,'  _Always_. Never deviated except for that one time in Victorian London when he thought it would be fun, just this once, to try a new name.   
It never would have mattered if that man (Stamcroft or Swampford or some such) hadn't heard him give his name to a waiter and misidentified him as an old associate, and the next thing the Doctor knew, he had been forced to concoct a story about searching for lodging in town and was being dragged off to meet a mysterious man about sharing a flat.   
  
The Doctor turned. Even without the name 'Watson,' he might have recognized the distinctive voice calling to him. And, sure enough, there was that remarkable figure, striding through the crowd toward him in a long, dark coat, and the Doctor realized that despite having lived in the twenty-first century for close to four years now, Sherlock Holmes still looked like he had just stepped out of Victorian London.  
  
"John," Sherlock greeted him again, looking down on his shorter friend, and it seemed to the Doctor that his companion had grown even taller and more lanky in their few years apart. No, he quickly realized. He himself had simply grown shorter. It occurred to the Doctor only now to ask what seemed to him to be the most obvious question. "How did you recognize me?"  
  
"Who else could you be?" asked Sherlock, and the Doctor had the distinct impression that the detective had barely refrained from rolling his eyes. Sherlock continued in a breathless torrent of exposition:   
  
"You've obviously regenerated your form since we last met, which explains why you felt it was safe to visit London, despite the fact that your behavior suggests you don't wish to be identified. Your clothes have changed, but your preferences for stripes, collars, and distinctive jackets remain. You are likely the only person in this square not checking—or, at very least, carrying—a smartphone, yet your hurry suggests you have somewhere you intend to be, although your manner is more eager than urgent, so your destination is as yet unknown. Even given the extremely low number of people in this street on a weekday morning with nowhere to be yet somewhere to go and your uncanny preference for London over all other locations in the known and unknown universes, it was possible that you could be some random member of the populace, but the bulge in your jacket where you've kept your sonic screwdriver and the look in your eyes were all I needed to ascertain—"  
  
"The look in my eyes!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Just how long have you been following me?"  
  
"Since you passed the cafe on the right, three streets back," Sherlock told him. "I saw you in the crowd and followed. I bumped into you at the last corner just to get close enough to make sure it really was you. Obviously, you didn't notice."  
  
The Doctor sighed, then felt a grin building up inside of him. He quickly suppressed it, allowing only the corner of his mouth to twitch up in a smile. Despite being over a hundred years into his own future, Sherlock Holmes was the same as ever.


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock wasn't certain why this mysterious man had returned. Doctor Watson was an enigma even to Sherlock because he defied the laws of normal humans. It was impossible to deduce everything of importance in a life that spanned hundreds of years. Not to mention the regenerations. Sherlock had reasoned that something of the sort must exist as soon as Watson told him his real age. After all, even with a slower aging process, any body would wear out over hundreds of years, and, given the extensive time this "Time Lord" had spent on Earth, a changing form was one of only eight reasonable explanations for the fact that Doctor Watson was not constantly recognized upon sight as a living legend.   
  
Sherlock knew that "John Watson" was not the man's real name, just as he had known, even as he made them, that his initial deductions about Watson when they met in the hospital lab were not nearly accurate. Indeed, he had only felt obliged to provide some demonstration of his skill so as not to make Stamford suspicious, but he could hardly go into much depth without revealing what was perfectly clear to him: this individual was not the friend Stamford thought him to be. The man Stamford regarded as Watson had clearly just returned from a war of some sort, and it seemed a likely enough occupation for the real John Watson that Sherlock felt it would do as a deduction to say merely that the man had been in Afghanistan. An impersonator was hardly going to contradict him. It was only later, in the private of Baker Street, that Sherlock's new acquaintance revealed the far more startling truth about his identity. And it was not until he found himself in the twenty-first century that Sherlock finally discovered records from his own time period indicating that the real John Watson, a British Army surgeon, was in fact killed in action at the Battle of Maiwand in Afghanistan. As the man had little close family, it was unlikely, Sherlock reasoned, that anyone else ever realized the mistake.   
  
Whatever Doctor Watson's purpose in London today, it obviously did not involve Sherlock Holmes, but Sherlock could see clearly that the time traveler had no current companion, and, as far as Sherlock was concerned, that was an open invitation. He fell into step beside the shorter man.  
  
"Where are we going to first?"   
  
"What do you mean we?" asked John, suspiciously.  
  
"I'm coming with you. I thought that was obvious," Sherlock replied.  
  
"Sherlock, you can't just leave your whole life behind and join me on an adventure. People will miss you. They'll wonder where you've disappeared to. It was bad enough having to pull you out of your own time, even if you did fake your death. I can't do that to you again. Besides," added John, a trifle desperately, "I've got another companion."  
  
"No you don't," said Sherlock, matter-of-factly. "And you had no trouble dragging me away on adventures the first time. No one will miss me. Donovan and Anderson will probably be thrilled."  
  
"Donovan and Anderson?"   
  
"Two of Lestrade's officers," explained Sherlock.  
  
"Lestrade!" exclaimed John. "There's a policeman in this time named Lestrade?"  
  
"A Detective Inspector," said Sherlock. "No relation, I already checked. It's not a common name, but apparently a coincidence. My landlady Mrs. Hudson, however, is in fact a descendent of our housekeeper from 1881. Her family still owns the lodgings at 221B, and she's kindly allowed me to stay there for half price since she owed me a favor—"  
  
"Hudson can't her maiden name," Doctor Watson objected.  
  
"Obviously." The detective suppressed a sign of exasperation. "She changed it after a rather nasty business with her late husband. And neither of them will miss me. Mrs. Hudson and Mycroft have specific instructions should I disappear again, and I am certain that Mycroft fully expects me to decamp with you one of these days. It should make monitoring my activities quite a challenge for him." Sherlock allowed himself a brief, self-satisfied smile at the thought.  
  
"But—" John began, trying to steer Sherlock back through the crowd, away from the TARDIS clearly hidden in the next alleyway. Sherlock was already pushing past his shorter companion, leaving the flustered time-traveler to dash frantically after him as he made for the alley.   
  
He rounded the corner and spotted the invisible time machine's not-quite-invisible shadow on the wall behind some bins. Sherlock made a mental note to point out this flaw in the TARDIS's camouflage (and its obvious solution) to his companion as he stepped around the bins and snapped his fingers. A sliver of golden light split the air two feet in front of the detective, widening as the TARDIS doors swung open.


	3. Chapter 3

The Doctor stared at Sherlock in amazement as the TARDIS doors gaped wide, a soft, glowing portal floating in the air. Walking up to stand beside the detective, the Doctor placed his hand on the TARDIS's invisible wall, and she shimmered into view. He turned to look up at Sherlock. He had no idea the detective could command the TARDIS like that. He hadn't even known he could do it himself until River told him about the finger-snapping trick that day in the Library...that day…  
  
The Doctor sighed and blinked, then remembered that he was still irritated with Sherlock and turned a rather unconvincing glare on the tall detective, rearranging his expression just a split second too late. He knew Sherlock must have seen his moment of regret, but the investigator said nothing, and the Doctor had the strangest feeling that Sherlock knew exactly what and who he had been thinking about. It was almost comforting to know that his companion understood, without the need for discussion, just what the Time Lord was remembering, but the Doctor couldn't help feeling slightly alarmed as well. He wished that he was sharing his thoughts with someone who might empathize a bit more, or at least had the capacity to comprehend his emotions. Sherlock, for all his brilliance, seemed positively inhuman at times. But, the Doctor reminded himself, no one but Sherlock could have guessed his mind in the first place.   
  
He shook himself out of his reverie and looked up to see the detective watching him closely out of the corner of his eye. Had Sherlock just read his entire internal musing? No, the Doctor decided, the man was just being mysterious. Mysterious and nosy.   
  
Suddenly impatient, the Doctor pushed past into the control room and began to fiddle with the dials and levers, eager to be off and completely forgetting that his current companion, who was standing unobtrusively by the TARDIS doors, had never actually been invited.   
  
  
***  
  
  
They were floating over the Eta Carina Nebula when Sherlock suddenly spoke.   
  
"John, what year are we in?"   
  
The Doctor jumped. "Somewhere around 7,000 B.C., Earth Standard Time," he answered, almost automatically, then added "and while I'm flattered that we are now on first-name terms, Sherlock, could you please just call me 'Doctor'? After all, there's no one else here, and we're not even on Earth anymore."  
  
"That may be true for the moment," conceded Sherlock, "but since we are likely to spend much of our time in populated regions where the inhabitants refer to each other by name, and I would prefer to remain inconspicuous, it is far more logical for us to both accustom ourselves to calling each other by common first names, for which I hardly believe 'the Doctor' qualifies. In addition, unless I am mistaken, which I very rarely am, 'doctor' is still regarded on most worlds as a title referring to both a teacher and healer of the sick or wounded, and, while I am certain that in your travels you have likely obtained at very minimum one doctorate qualification, I seriously doubt that your medical skills are capable of dealing with every eventuality we might encounter which would require such a healer, so unless you wish to deal with a great number of questions and inevitable accusations, which I certainly do not, I suggest you avoid using such an obvious title in the foreseeable future."  
  
The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again. He was accustomed to being the person in the room who was always spouting explanations and propositions and descriptions at breakneck speed, but with Sherlock, he hardly knew how to begin to refute the detective's claims. The more the Doctor thought about it, keeping a low profile might not be such a bad thing, at least for a while. He shrugged his acceptance and returned to the control board as the detective turned smugly back to the open doors and their spectacular view of the dust pillar known as Eta Carina's "Mystic Mountain." Sherlock studied the stars on the fringes of the nebula then lifted himself out of the doors, holding the frame with one long arm as he pivoted in space, surrounded by the TARDIS's extended air-field, examining the placement of the celestial bodies around them.   
  
"We're in Earth's southern hemisphere, yes?" he asked, pulling himself back through the doors. The Doctor looked up again, surprised.  
  
"Yes we are. I thought you said that astronomy was unimportant?"  
  
"For a consulting detective, it was completely irrelevant. For an interstellar space- and time-traveler, however, a thorough knowledge of our solar system and beyond is quite valuable, so I have made certain to educate myself on the subject."  
  
The Doctor wondered exactly when Sherlock had found time to study all of this new information. How long had the detective known he would be visiting the stars again? He watched Sherlock's lean, dark form framed against the bright points and swirling dust clouds of space. This mysterious man looked as comfortable in the middle of a nebula as he did in the crowded streets of London. He seemed at home anywhere, in any time, and the Doctor wondered if Sherlock was so self-contained, so isolated from the people around him, that he never really had a home. Unattached...like the Doctor himself.   
  
Except the Doctor  _was_  attached, connected to people and places and events across time and space. When, he wondered, had he let himself become so tied down? Yes, the Time Lord decided: remaining anonymous might be quite a good idea, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought it would be interesting to write a WhoLock fan fiction with John as the Doctor (since it's usually Sherlock). I tried to incorporate aspects from the original Sherlock Holmes stories as well because if you've got a time-machine at your disposal, it's a pretty convenient way to explain how Sherlock Holmes ended up in the 21st Century in the first place! More is on the way!
> 
> Please comment and let me know what you think (Critiques are welcomed as well—please be honest but respectful).
> 
> Feel free to share this, but if you post it to a site like tumblr, I would appreciate it if you would send me a link! Obviously, neither Sherlock Holmes nor Doctor Who (or any of their related characters) belong to me.


End file.
